


the space between: ii. fallout.

by melodysrefrain



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Crying, Fear, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Intimacy, M/M, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:34:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23044852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melodysrefrain/pseuds/melodysrefrain
Summary: The world has gone very very wrong. Jon and Martin stare in horror at the immediate aftermath. Occurs immediately after the ending of TMA 160. Contains major spoilers.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 1
Kudos: 33
Collections: The Magnus Archives Fanfiction





	the space between: ii. fallout.

_ for visce. _

_ the space between. _

_ \--- _

Terror. In every word as he stared out that window at the world gone wrong there was such unbridled terror and fear and anger and sadness and regret. And the sky was staring back. Thousands upon thousands of staring lidless eyes, some almost cartoonish, some grotesque like someone had ripped them from the socket of a many eyed creature. The air boiled, heat and haze obscuring everything for miles - at least where the light still shone. It was terrifying.

“Jon, please, please close the curtains, close the window--”

“Everythings wrong… Everything…”

Jon’s voice was so quiet. Breath caught in my lungs, already on fire from fear and anxiety and the hell around us. Damn Elias. Jonah. Whatever his name was. I do not have the words strong enough to describe the vitriol and hatred for what he did to everything, to everyone, and yet. The sheer selfishness of me to think of how much  _ he _ had been hurt through all of this.

“Jon, please come here…” I didn’t realise how dry my throat was. Talking hurt. Everything hurt in it’s own ways.

“It’s all my fault…”

Jon was frozen to the spot. White knuckles gripped the windowsill, his breath shallow, steaming up the window as a distant boom echoed out from somewhere. Probably something awful. But what was one more catastrophe next to a whole universe of calamities crashing in on this world from every corner?

But all I could do was look at him. I could feel the loneliness tugging at me, the pain of seeing him suffer but not knowing what to do, the gateway to isolation. I could feel cold and clammy hands against my shoulder, cold breath against my neck, pushing me, telling me to walk away, to leave him, that it was all his fault anyway, that if I kept him away I would be safe, that--

“What do I do, Martin..?”

I don’t know when my gaze drifted. When my hand reached up to grab my other arm. When my fingers gripped and clawed at my binder for any sort of purchase, but when I looked up he was there. He was there looking back at me. Even with silent tears streaming down his face he looked so, so beautiful. Framed in the window against the pandaemonium outside, where fires danced against sundered sky, where his eyes never moved unblinking from me as I tried desperately to meet his gaze, his shuddering breath rocking his entire body like the mere action was all but forgotten.

“I don’t know, Jon…”

We stared at each other in panic and fear and desperation and longing and need and hurt and understanding and solace. His hair fell around his face so perfectly. My eyes felt hot and my chest felt tight in three different ways, and my voice hurt to use and my fingernails dug into my shoulder and as I felt myself say “I don’t know” a second time, and felt the tears begin to fall it was all I could do to stumble across the tiny safe room, with it’s bed not quite big enough for two but cavernous for one, across the unkempt pile of clothes and bags and papers that littered the floorboards, and dropped onto the floor beside him.

Shaking, I reached my hand to his, placed it as gently as I could on top, squeezed as gently as I dared while every part of me screamed to grip him and never let go. Tears still hot against my cheeks, choking back sobs, keeping his eyes as close to mine as possible, feeling them pressing into me but in a new way, like a scared child looking for a friend in a cruel world I laced my fingers through his. First just the tips to part his own, letting him give way to me, to let him know I was there, that I needed him too. I held myself in the grasp of his fingers that clenched themselves to the window ledge with such ferocity and fear like if he let go even for a moment it would all be lost. I slid my hand into his and pulled him from there as gently as I could, and as his palm dropped between us and my fingers burned in a grip that I never wanted to be free from, we collapsed into tears against each other.

“I don’t know…” I moaned through shaking breath and arms that held so tightly and the hair against my noise and clothes against his chest that I pressed my face against in hope and fright and devastation. “I don’t know… I don’t, know I… I-I don’t know and I’m, I’m so scared…” Every word felt like it was being pulled from me by razor wire as I choked, then sobbed, then wailed in his arms that wrapped around me so, so tightly, arms that slipped and slid before being thrown back up to grip tighter, like the very effort took all his strength. My back his cliff’s edge, this wooden floor his precipice, a vast and empty fall to ruin and despair. His tears dripped against my cheeks and my shoulders as he whispered my name again, and again, and again, like it was his one anchor to the here and now.

I’d always wanted to be an anchor, but not like this. Was it when I piled all those tapes against that infernal coffin? Was it when I brought him tea in simpler times? Was it when I comforted him in those quiet moments when we were fearful and alone in those box-lined walls? Was it when he told me that he knew the way home that I became his root against the trembling earth? Was it when he took my hand and led me through that mist and out into the light and I held onto him so, so tightly that I first noticed him squeezing back with such fervour?

“I’m scared too, Martin… I’m…” And as his voice tailed off, and I found the strength to move my head up, to press into his shoulder, to grip his waist as strongly and warm as I could muster, that I heard him sob. That I felt his grip slacken on my shoulders. That without warning, I heard his wailing fill the room. A tortured scream that I could do nothing but brace against, the rope around his waist against the fall.

It broke my heart. I lay there against him and let him wail and sob and scream and cry against me until his voice gave out and his breathing softened and his grip relaxed. I lay there as his anchor. His safety net. His blanket against his fears.

Something in those moments made me bold. Somewhere in that shadow of darkness and monsters and the unending fear outside I felt my tears slow. I looked up at him and his gaze met mine and through our messy tears and the distant rumbling of earth and fire and monster and blackness and unending terror I saw him. He looked so frightened. Gosh knows how I felt. Goodness knows how anyone was supposed to feel right now. And yet…

My hand moved to brush his hair from his face. Tuck it behind his ear. He did his best to smile. I did too. We stayed like that for a while. Two refugees against the universe, huddled under a window in a room too small for both of us. But we were here.

We were alive.

I took his hand in mine again and pressed it to my cheek. My breath shuddered and my throat was sore, but with what energy I had I looked into his eyes and squeezed his hand in mine, and pressed my forehead to his chin and then, against the evils of the world pouring out from everywhere and nowhere, I spoke.

“I don’t know what to do, Jon. But I am not going anywhere.”

\---

_ ii. fallout. _


End file.
